Forgotten Memories
by Shol.Rebecca
Summary: AU Severus Snape lived through the attack by Nagini and now, rid of integral memories of Lily, he is finding a way to move on with his life. Rated T for Precaution
1. Hope

**AN* I know this pairing is not popular with a lot of people but I love it. I think that had Rowling wanted Snape could have lived as he still possessed his wand and Nagini's bite is not always fatal. Anyway I own nothing but a deep love for these characters and the world in which they live. Read and Review :)**

He turned over in his sleep, the phantom he was chasing just out of reach. She was walking quickly away from him turning every so often to beckon him forward her lush red hair hiding her face from view. He followed her in silence admiring her from behind, her slender shoulders were just covered in a layer of glistening locks and her pale skin glowed in the moonlight. The faint white light highlighted the gentle curves of her waist and hips, her jeans hugging her long legs as she rushed on ahead of him. He was trailing her across a field that looked fairly familiar to him as if from a distant time. Just ahead of them was a large willow casting rippling shadows in the breeze; it was behind this that the girl now stood waiting for him. He could see her peeking around the far side of the trunk and he walked to cut her off. As he approached her and stretch out a hand to grab her shoulder she turned now transformed. Her hair had darkened and curled, no longer was he chasing lily. Severus shot up out of bed in a cold sweat, he had followed what he had thought was his beloved Lily but just at the last moment he was staring into the face of Hermione Granger.

She was only a child he chastised himself. Well actually she was of age now but there was no difference he was still old enough to be her father. So why did he feel this way? It had not been the first time that his dreams had taken this turn. The fleeing woman who he had thought was Lily unreachable like a lost memory, yet at the last moment transfigured into the girl he pretended to loathe. She was so similar to Lily and yet so different. Lily was wonderfully smart and still had never boasted her intelligence; the Granger girl never withdrew her hand from the air. He despised that he had an attraction to the girl and it was exactly why he was so hard on her. She was wasting her talents on the insufferable Potter and Weasley idiots, constantly coaching them through their lessons, he knew it was likely that she was the only reason the two fools had received any OWLS.

He thought back to the final battle at Hogwarts. He had been bitten by the snake and lost nearly half his volume of blood in the attack. He had extracted the best of his memories of Lily and given them to Potter to prove his allegiance to the order. In the next few hours the loss of blood and the withdrawal of memories that were such an integral part of his life had proved too taxing on his fragile mind and he had fallen into a coma. For the next few months he had only snippets of life between taunting dreams and fearful nightmares. There were many flashes of the Granger girl, which could not be distinguished from the dreams and the waking. He had thought that it had been her who had found him slumped against the peeling walls of the shrieking shack. She had levitated him down the narrow path under the weeping willow and up to the hospital. From this point the only memory he had before arriving at St. Mungos wash her face leaning over his, a look of pain and determination set on her fine features the light glowing behind her wild hair giving the illusion of illumination of angels.

This dream had been the first that he had woken from; the others had always gone on before transforming into terrible nightmares filled with writhing scaled bodies and scarlet hate filled eyes. These he had tried to forget and upon his return he would make use of the penseive to eradicate them from his tormented memory. He looked more kindly onto the dreams in which he endlessly chased the girl longing to simply touch her pale hands or caress her frizzy locks. Now in his waking he loathed himself. He had watched the witch grow into a woman and he was sickened at his fantasies of her embrace, her pale arms wrapped around his waist in a tender vice. Stupid he scoffed at himself, there wasn't a single doubt in his mind that she disliked every fiber of his being without blame, there hadn't been a time in which he hadn't made her life miserable. And yet there was a tiny glimmer of something he had not felt in more years than he could remember.

Hope.


	2. Safe

***AN I own nothing unfortunately. This chapter is a bit of a backtrack on the first one but I felt it was necessary to set up the rest of the story. Read and Review and maybe I can get another chapter up quickly.**

Hermione sat on the remains of the grand staircase that led into the great hall. She was exhausted; she had finally come to the end of a battle she had been fighting for as long as she seemed able to remember now. Harry had vanquished Voldemort and now there was a celebration going on throughout the whole school, but amidst all the festivities Hermione could not escape the thought of all those whose lives had been lost. She seemed not to be the only one; there were a few people who were continuing to move the bodies into the courtyard away from the noise and chaos. Among the few was Neville, strong and silent he carried the corpses of friends cradled in his arms laying them quietly upon the war torn stones. Hermione looked away unable to bear the weight of loss. She stood from the stairs and made her way into the grounds intent on helping to clean the school and restore it to it former glory.

All around her were the marks of battle, great gaping holes in the walls of the school; craters made from the feet of giants marred the grounds. Walking further from the school she saw the smoldering remains of Hagrids small hut. In the air lingered the smell of burning wood and hair, likely the small collection of unicorn tail hairs that had hung from the ceiling of the shack. As Hermione passed the room that even in its standing form looked to small for its inhabitant, a fountain of water sprung from her wand extinguishing the last of the smoldering ashes and with a muttered reparo the hut began to restore itself. Moments later the last of the fallen treasures had been replaced to its shelf, and though it was darkened by scorch marks the hut was standing and only needed a bit of repairing. She continued on seeking company and solace as well as solidarity and peace, which she knew she would not likely find at any time soon.

Just beyond the cabin she had repaired stood the whomping willow, now partially torn from the ground and crushed, waving limply in the gentle breeze, it no longer put up any fight as she walked toward it, a sad sight when she remembered it throwing her around only four years ago. There wasn't much that she knew how to do to fix it, she smiled a bit as she realized the Neville was much more qualified to repair the tree, she vaguely remembered the great tree in a myriad of slings in her second year when Harry and Ron had crashed the car into its branches. She surveyed the tree hoping to think of something she might be able to do to revive it when she cast her eyes on the knot that froze its swinging branches and with a lurch from her stomach she suddenly remembered that Snape lay at the end on the secret passageway.

Reaching up and brushing branches away she slid into the tunnel to retrieve his body. He deserved a proper burial. Just after the battle had ended Harry had told her and Ron what he had seen in the pensieve. Hermione had been saddened and relieved as she had nearly always had faith in the professor since it had been revealed that Quirrel had been the one after the Sorcer's stone. The ceiling of the tunnel was low and Hermione was forced to stoop nearly to the point of crawling to move forward. With a small flick of her wand she ignited the walls in a pale white light to see, the path was long and sloping and she was short of breath when she reached the end and moved the crate blocking her entrance to the shrieking shack.

As she emerged into the room she caught sight of Snapes limp body slumped against the far wall. His eyes were still wide and blank looking, his left hand drawn to his throat and his right curled around his wand, as she gazed she let out a soft whimper, at the sound Snape's fingers twitched. Hermione flung herself onto the ground next to his and the knees of her jeans began to soak up his blood, she stared down at is had with hers placed lightly on his chest. She jumped back as she felt the small movement of his chest rise under her palm. Quickly she set her fingers to his throat and felt a faint but unmistakable pulse at the tips. She pulled her wand from the floor and cast a blue shadow of an otter telling it to come quickly to the shrieking shack Snape was alive, and sent it off to McGonagall. She turned back to Snape and began returning his blood to his veins with quiet whispers to her wand; she could see color returning to his starch white skin. She placed a hand against his cheek and his eyes flicked to her face. She whispered just loud enough for his to hear. "Everything is going to be okay, I'm here now." His hand that lay on the floor found its way up to hers and his fingers weakly wrapped around with a small squeeze. She looked into his eyes and whispered,

"You're safe."


End file.
